My sixty-fifth birthday was a few days ago—time passes so fast. I’ll probably live a long time, maybe until I’m close to one hundred. Then I’ll die in a nursing home; I’ve set aside some savings for living in a nursing home. I like writing poetry, although I’ve never had a poem published. When my husband and daughter were alive, I was always busy and had no time for writing. After they died, I started writing poems in earnest. I read many poems, both Chinese and foreign. I love writing poetry. Perhaps, because I have to write a few lines every day, this good habit has helped me sleep better. When I was young, I suffered from insomnia quite often. An hour or so after dinner, when I was totally relaxed, I started writing. Sometimes I wrote two lines, sometimes three or four. And sometimes only one. It didn’t matter how many sentences I wrote, I always felt an inner pleasure. I gave them to my neighbor Auntie Jin to read. Although Auntie Jin didn’t react much to these words on paper, I wasn’t discouraged. After all, I could still read them to my husband and daughter. I thought, it’s because I’m writing poetry that my life is so organized. But one day after I’d been writing poetry for half a year, things changed.
That night, when I was almost asleep, I heard someone outside calling me.
“Zha Yuqin! Zha Yuqin . . .”
Thinking I was hallucinating, I ignored it at first. But the sound persisted stubbornly until I was fully awake. I could tell that it was Mrs. Liu, who lived in a bungalow nearby. She was a widow, too. If she was looking for me at this hour, she must have run into some trouble. Of course I was familiar with the trouble widows might encounter. I got dressed quickly and opened the door.
Mrs. Liu was standing in the dark, so I couldn’t see her face. She told me to get my key and lock the door and go with her at once. From her clear, strong voice, I concluded that she wasn’t sick.
“Yuqin, it rained a little just now. Let’s go to the soccer field to pick mushrooms,” she said.
“What? How can there be mushrooms in a city soccer field?” I didn’t want to go out.
“I’m the only one who knows this secret. Now is the perfect time to pick them. I’ve brought cloth bags. We can each fill one large bag. That will last us several days.”
As she spoke, she dragged me downstairs.
When we got to the street, I thought to myself, I wasn’t sleeping anyway, and going out with her is sort of a novelty.
At the end of this well-lit street, we came to Jiancai Street, which was pitch-dark. The soccer field was nearby. Because it was so late, no one was around. I couldn’t help being a little nervous. I had hallucinated a few times on the way, each time seeing a person or a large animal hiding in a dark spot. One time, that dark shadow flung itself toward us, and I screamed in fear. Mrs. Liu grabbed my hand firmly and comforted me, “We’re here. We’ve arrived. Look—here’s the entrance.”
But this entrance wasn’t like the entrance we saw in the daytime, and we groped around in the dark for a long time before I felt grass underfoot. Mrs. Liu had already rushed ahead; I could vaguely see her repeatedly bending over. And I could hear her exclaim, “Aiya—so many. This rain brought them out! Ah, there’s another cluster of them here—Hi, little things, are you standing up for us to see you?”
I couldn’t see anything at all, nor did I believe that there could be mushrooms in the grass. This wasn’t a forest, after all, and soccer games were often held here—so how could there be any mushrooms? I heard Mrs. Liu’s voice: “Don’t be silly—hurry up and pick them!”
“There can’t be spores in a place like this, so how can there be mushrooms?” I grumbled.
“Who says there can’t be spores? Haven’t you heard that Mother Earth can split open late at night?”
This surprised me: When had Mrs. Liu become a poet? Mrs. Liu was moving farther away, and I wanted to catch up with her, but something black threw itself at me. I fell heavily to the ground. I opened my mouth to shout for Mrs. Liu, but I couldn’t get anything out. Besides, I was numb all over and unable to budge. The black thing had disappeared. Could it have been a bear? Overhead were the glittering Milky Way and the glistening heavens. In fact, in this seriously polluted city, I hadn’t seen the stars for decades—much less the Milky Way. Was this really our city’s soccer field? I used to be agile because I exercised regularly, and so now why couldn’t I get up from the ground? Although I couldn’t move, I was very clear-headed: I could even hear a siren in the distance. I was comfortable lying on the grass; I was just worried because I couldn’t move. Why had I made trouble for myself? Would Mrs. Liu leave me here by myself? Mrs. Liu, Mrs. Liu, what are you up to tonight?
Time seemed to be standing still. I could see only the Milky Way and the sky. I wanted to turn my head, but it wasn’t possible. And so I worried more and more. I even thought crazily, Am I already dead? Slowly, I recalled what had occurred during the night: I had been asleep, and then—inexplicably—I had followed Mrs. Liu to this place. Then I had been attacked and—lying here—was unable to move. Then, I started thinking about Mrs. Liu. She had lived for more than thirty years in the bungalow downstairs from my apartment. Behind the bungalow were a simple kitchen and toilet that she had built herself. I remembered that at first she’d had a girl with her, and after the girl got married and left, she lived by herself. Mrs. Liu seldom associated with others. Except for buying groceries and cooking, she stayed cooped up in her bungalow. Sometimes, out of curiosity, I would visit her in her bungalow. She was always inside, quietly making soles for shoes. She made all of her own shoes, which were really delicate and pretty. Whenever I walked in, she smiled a little, and got up and poured tea for me. She never had many things to talk about: each time, she talked about her desire to travel. She always said, “I want to travel the world. I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to do that.” “Now people talk of time travel. It would be wonderful if I could travel back in time to ancient cities, even if I could only take a quick look at them.” “Do you think I can live until the ‘Cosmic Gala Day’? If I’m so lucky, I’ll certainly go.” “They say that there’s an ancient city under our city. Is that true?” It was hard for me to answer her questions. Each time, I just gave a vague answer, but she didn’t take offense. I thought, it’s because I’ve been around her so often that I’m now in this predicament. All along, she had invited me to travel the world with her. Now, at last, I was here. If she hadn’t told me, I would never have known that there was another world under our city! At that time, she was so happy: she saw Mother Earth split open and saw so many mushrooms buried in the grass. She had invited me to come because she wanted to share the joy with me. Ah! If only I could get up right now, I could go with her to see the fish that can climb trees!
“Mrs. Liu, how can I get up?” I muttered toward midair.
“It all depends on your willpower. Have you forgotten that, Yuqin?” she unexpectedly answered.
Hey, I could speak!
“Mrs. Liu! Mrs. Liu!”
“Don’t shout. I’m here. This is my leg. Hang onto my leg and stand up.”
Her leg was like an iron pillar. I struggled to grab her corduroy trousers and stood up.
Under the starlight, I could see that Mrs. Liu was in good spirits: she was standing there with two bags of mushrooms.
“Let’s go home. We’ll come out again tomorrow night and go north of the city. There, when we get to the river, we’ll paddle a boat,” she said.
“There’s a river north of the city?”
“If you look for it carefully, you’ll find it.”
I thought and thought. This did seem reasonable. After all, she’d found mushrooms on the soccer field.
When we parted, Mrs. Liu admonished me to wash the mushrooms well, because of the heavy ash in the city air. She also said, “Oh, I forgot. I have to go to a relative’s home and stay a few days. You go ahead and write your poetry during that time. We’ll do this again when I come back.”
What was this all about? Mrs. Liu had suddenly appeared in my life! Hadn’t she lived in the bungalow below my apartment for more than thirty years? We’d known each other all along. Why hadn’t we become friends earlier? Maybe she’d been waiting for an opportunity to travel with me and had planned it all a long time ago. Mrs. Liu: Who was she, really? During these few days, I kept recalling the adventure on the soccer field. In my memory, the glistening Milky Way kept changing its shape. I apparently wasn’t knocked down by an animal like a brown bear, but had lain down on the grass of my own accord. A nocturnal bird was walking around in the vicinity. I was more passionate about having night adventures than I was about writing poetry. I waited impatiently for Mrs. Liu to return. Every time I came to her bungalow, I pressed my face against the window and looked inside. It was deserted; there was no trace of her. I remembered that she had said I should write poetry at home, and I forced myself to calm down.
Day after day went by, and Mrs. Liu still hadn’t returned. But my poetry was piling up. Although I rarely read my own drafts, I still knew that I was making progress. I loved writing poetry.
One day, I went to the supermarket to buy some necessities. On the way, I had to pass a shop selling sesame-seed biscuits. There, right at the shop’s entrance, I suddenly spotted a familiar figure. It was Mrs. Liu. She was wasting away, but she was in good spirits and her eyes were shining with light. She clutched my hand and whispered, “Yuqin, are you doing anything urgent right now?”
I said no.
“Wonderful! Come with me.”
I followed her into a very narrow passageway beside the sesame-seed biscuit shop. I had lived in this part of the city for a very long time, and had never entered this passageway. Actually, I’d never known it existed.
This passageway was strange: it was not only narrow, it was also long. The walls on the two sides were made up of the sides of houses or section after section of an enclosing wall. These walls blocked the light, and so it felt a little like walking in a tunnel. When I looked at the path under my feet, a little creature actually jumped from the enclosing wall onto my shoulder. I was so frightened I began shaking. Mrs. Liu said it didn’t matter: this was a house mouse which lived with people. As she spoke, the little thing vaulted up to a hole in the wall. It wasn’t small; it must have weighed more than two pounds.
“There are many house mice in holes in the walls. They have glossy skin and fur; they’re an unusual breed. These people spoil them.”
I didn’t know where Mrs. Liu was taking me, and I was filled with curiosity about this dark passage. I waited with bated breath.
Suddenly, I discovered the way ahead was blocked: it was impassable. I could indistinctly see some holes on the wall. Maybe the house mice lived in these holes.
“Damn! They’ve blocked this,” Mrs. Liu spoke softly in the dark.
I started shaking again, but I was still waiting expectantly.
“Which part of the city are we in now?” I asked Mrs. Liu.
She didn’t answer. She just walked on, feeling her way along the left side of the wall. Then she said we had arrived.
“Yuqin, you exercise every day, don’t you? And you’re very agile, aren’t you? Come, stand on my back. Reach up as far as you can. You’ll feel a windowsill. On the windowsill are two pillars. Grab them, and climb up with all your might. Then you’ll be able to climb onto the windowsill.”
Mrs. Liu’s back was sturdy. I steadied myself on it and stretched out my hands and grabbed the two wooden pillars. It was hard to pull myself up from this position. Maybe if I were twenty years younger, I could have. I heard Mrs. Liu fuming, “Zha Yuqin, don’t you want to try? Are you such a coward?”
Some crazy ideas were whirling around in my brain, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I heard a strange roar come from me, and then I leapt onto the windowsill. The windowsill was wide, and I sat between two thin pillars. I heard Mrs. Liu’s voice coming from far away: “Yuqin, you’re in the forest in the center of the city . . .”
I realized that it was indeed like a forest here: many animals were living inside the wall, and grass was growing on the windowsill where I was sitting. Through the window, I vaguely saw trees with lush leaves inside the room, and I saw the phosphorescent-like eyes of two huge animals. Was it a wildlife park hidden in the city? A place which only Mrs. Liu could find? I jumped down from the windowsill, landing on the lawn.
“Zha Yuqin, you’re more daring than you used to be.”
The one speaking in the dark was my neighbor Auntie Feng. I asked her where I was.
“Where are you? The soccer field, of course!”
“But that’s on Jiancai Street,” I said, puzzled.
“For those who have the will all roads lead to the soccer field. Do you understand?”
Auntie Feng helped me stand. Hand in hand, we walked fearlessly out of the soccer field.
Exiting Jiancai Street, we came to Central Avenue. Crowds of people were all around, and I kept hearing a voice saying: “You’re welcome here anytime. This is a forest park . . .”
